Dynamic attention-based view of corporate headquarters in MNCs

Tomi Laamanen

doi:10.1186/s41469-019-0056-7

Abstract

While the usefulness of the attention-based view in understanding the role of headquarters-subsidiary relationships in multinational companies (MNC) is well established, recent research on corporate headquarters (CHQ) has moved beyond the simplistic conception of CHQ as a unitary entity. In this point of view, I review the development of the attention-based view and its use in research on CHQs in MNCs. Developing a better understanding of the dynamics of attention between the different subsidiaries and the increasingly dispersed and disaggregated headquarters activities in MNCs requires a more dynamic view of attention. Building on the recently introduced dynamic attention-based view, I identify potential research areas emerging from the application of the dynamic attention-based view to research on CHQ activities in MNCs.

Highlights

Over the past 20 years, researchers have increasingly adopted the attention-based view (ABV) to study a wide range of strategy-related phenomena (Gavetti et al 2012; Joseph and Wilson 2018; Ocasio 1997; Ocasio 2011; Ocasio and Joseph 2005)
The authors argue that attention should be studied as an individual-level cognitive phenomenon, and as a social one in which the attention and co-orientation of organizational actors are shaped by communication. They identify four potential areas of future research. These include (a) an analysis of the nature of communicative practices used in communication channels, which can enable or constrain changes in attentional engagement; (b) an analysis of strategic vocabularies to develop insights into how language use shapes attention; (c) an analysis of rhetorical tactics to better comprehend the role of political dynamics in shaping the strategic agenda of a firm; and (d) an analysis of different forms of talk and text to understand how changes in strategic agendas are articulated and shared throughout the organization (Ocasio et al 2018:158)
While these four research areas relate to the question of how attentional engagement can be influenced during strategic change, they are relevant to analyzing the dynamics of distributed headquarters activities in multinational companies (MNC)

Summary

Introduction

Over the past 20 years, researchers have increasingly adopted the attention-based view (ABV) to study a wide range of strategy-related phenomena (Gavetti et al 2012; Joseph and Wilson 2018; Ocasio 1997; Ocasio 2011; Ocasio and Joseph 2005).

Results

Conclusion